Saturday, February 28, 2015

I call it Palestinianism. This is not to be confused with Islam, neither Shi’a nor Sunni. To join the fast-swelling herd of Palestinianites, one does not need to learn the Quran or avoid pork and alcohol or wear a veil or grow a beard or even believe in Allah. You do not even have to care about the Arabs self-identified as Palestinians. There is only one thing required of you. You must hate the Jewish State of Israel with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

Actually, since, as David Nirenburg puts it, "The Quran is extensively structured as a polemic against the Jews" (apes 'n' pigs and all that stuff), Islam does play a big role in engendering Muslims' negative feelings toward Jewry and Jewish state. It is silly and short-sighted to think otherwise.Of course, non-Muslim "progressives" can and do hate Israel every bit as much as Muslim Zion-loathers, but their reasons for doing so have more to do with Marxist-Socialist notions about the innate virtuousness of Third World "victims" of eee-ville Western Capitalism/Imperialism.

I'd hold off on that gratitude. Knowing Kerry and his snippy boss, I'm pretty sure such blame is just around the corner.Speaking of global warming, this is the coldest February in Toronto on record. Are the "experts" sure that what we're experiencing isn't global (or, at least, local) cooling?

Born in Kuwait and raised in Britain from the age of six, he benefited from all the advantages our liberal democracy bestows on its citizens – free education, free healthcare, free expression, and freedom of worship.

He had a comfortable home in a decent neighbourhood not far from the Notting Hill house of the Prime Minister, went to a Church of England primary school and, as a boy, is said to have been polite and studious – achieving a degree in computer science at Westminster University.

So how did an ordinary British Muslim boy – real name Mohammed Emwazi – mutate into a swaggering monster capable of hacking off the heads of innocent hostages in the name of religion?

Did his friends, family and fellow worshippers at his south London mosque realise how dangerously radicalised he was becoming, and if so, did they do anything to try to stop it?

And what of Westminster University, which has been repeatedly accused of giving a platform to preachers of hate?

A recent students’ union president was linked to the radical group Hizb-ut-Tahrir and just last night the university was forced to cancel a planned talk by a Muslim cleric who has previously described homosexuality as ‘a scourge’ and Jews as being descended from ‘apes and pigs’.

Here comes the wrong question:

Was he radicalised there? And if so, do we need to rethink liberal assumptions about free speech that have been the basis of so much of our culture for so long?

No, what we need to rethink are (fundamentally flawed) liberal assumptions about "diversity" and "multiculturalism." And maybe take a look at who you've been letting into your country, and what's being preached online and at the local mosque.

Why would we "rethink" free speech when it's the sparkplug that keeps free societies free?

That's what I call the malady suffered by those, especially "progressive" Muslim chicks, who believe that Islam accords them all the rights--and then some--granted to women in the West.Think of it as a kind of Islamic Stockholm Syndrome.Toronto Sun columnist Farzana Hassan unpacks it here:

The concept of utopian gender equality is much touted even among the more liberal and moderate factions within Islam. The notion that men and women are “equal before Allah” attracts many impressionable Muslim women toward a life of abject piety and submission.

Against all the evidence, many Muslim women cling to the view there is no discrimination against them in Islam. They believe Islam gives them privileges that Western women cannot even imagine.

Apparent inequalities, such as polygamy, wife battering, segregation, or thwarted educational and work opportunities, occur for the best of reasons, known only to Him who sustains the universe.

It is argued, for example, that polygamy is socially beneficial if it prevents extra-marital affairs.

An entire industry, developed by Islamic scholars, hones this rationale to counter any challenges to sharia law from the real world, and even from progressive Muslims.
Orthodox Islam hides itself away from progress, and the main victims are women.

Hence a reason, writes Hassan, why some ignorant young women, many of them teenagers, can and do swoon for ISIS:

ISIS takes this insularity to the most barbaric extremes.

Women can be married at nine, their manifesto states. They must not seek education beyond the age of 15.

They must then agree to marry to fulfill the “divine duty of motherhood”.

The insidious views of its manifesto ought to be publicized among Muslim women so they are made aware of the dangers awaiting them under ISIS.

But more broadly, Muslim women should examine sharia provisions more dispassionately, to understand that even Islamic orthodoxy denies them equality.

Hassan's brave and honest wrap-up should adorn posters, mugs, T-shirts and bumper stickers, and be memorized by every security official who works for CSIS and the RCMP:

The difference between the ISIS agenda and mainstream sharia is only one of degree, not essence.

Shahina Siddiqui is the individual who took umbrage at something B'nai Brith's David Matas said at some conference, complained about it to the Manitoba "human rights" body, and embroiled Matas and the BB in a case that lasted for half a decade. (This being a Canadian "human rights" case, the accused were not even apprised of the identity of their accuser.) More recently, she has served on the board of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the organization that used to be known as CAIR-CAN, but which changed its name because it did not want to be grouped with CAIR, the American Muslim Brotherhood associate.The other day, Ms. Siddiqui appeared in front of a Canadian Senate committee to make the case that the organization she represents is "moderate" and thus an appropriate partner for Canadian authorities who want to do something to counter the siren call of jihad that's luring more than a few Canadian "yutes" to Syria, there to wage jihad with ISIS. Here's a report about her Senate testimony from the Toronto Sun:

MONTREAL -- A Muslim social services leader made an anti-radicalization submission to a Senate committee then faced tough questions about her own alleged association with radicals.

Shahina Siddiqui, of the Winnipeg-based Islamic Social Services Association, appeared before the Senate committee on national security and defence in Ottawa Monday.

She called on Muslims and non-Muslims to work together to combat ISIS and al-Qaida but also cautioned against "religious bigotry by Islamophobes."

Committee chairman Sen. Daniel Lang and member Sen. Lynn Beyak questioned Siddiqui about her work as a board member with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), formerly known as CAIR-CAN.

The Ottawa advocacy group announced last year it was suing Prime Minister Stephen Harper for linking the organization with the terrorist group Hamas.

Senator Beyak asked Siddiqui about the connections between CAIR-CAN and CAIR-USA.

The U.S. group is an unindicted co-conspirator in a $12-million Hamas financing trial that led to guilty verdicts in Texas in 2008.

"How can we trust community organizations to help us develop a counter-radicalization narrative when they themselves are affiliated with organizations with known ties to terrorism?" Beyak asked.

Siddiqui told senators that CAIR-USA and CAIR-CAN/NCCM are not related.

But, in fact, Canada's trademarks database indicates CAIR-USA applied for, and was granted, the trademark on the CAIR name in Canada in 2005.

On Monday, Siddiqui offered what appeared to be a defence of the Washington, D.C. group.""If they are unindicted then they're not guilty," she said...

Nice try, Shahina, but it means no such thing. What it means is that, for some unarticulated reason--could be political correctness; could be sheer ennui--authorities thought the organization was culpable, but did not bother to go forward with an indictment. That said, I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that at least one member of the Canadian Senate isn't buying the spin and seems to have Siddiqui's number.

Silly Patty. Didn't she know that in calling for other victim groups to rally to the cause of "equal rights for women" she'd be opening a Pandora's box (so to speak)?:

“Twitter got into a rage over Patricia Arquette’s Comments in the Oscar Press Room,” is how Buzzfeeddescribed the ensuing online outcry. “It is definitely not time for ‘all the gay people’ and ‘all the people of color’ to set aside their own battle for equality in order to fight for straight, white women now,” thundered Amanda Marcotte in a piece for Slate titled, “Patricia Arquette’s Feminism: Only for White Women.” A blogger for Fusion.net accused the actress of “feminist whitesplaining.” Arquette stepped in it. By seemingly prioritizing the struggles of one historically disadvantaged group (women) over those of others (blacks, Latinos, gays, etc.), Arquette ran afoul of the rules of the identity-politics game foisted upon our political discourse by the self-appointed, Twitter-enabled arbiters of the “national conversation.”

Arquette may have been unfamiliar with a recent essay in New York magazine by Jonathan Chait, an important salvo from the mainstream liberal camp in this ever-evolving intellectual battle. Sparked by a series of controversies related to alleged sexual assaults on college campuses, debates over depictions of the prophet Muhammad, and a widespread “attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate,” Chait assailed what he described as a rising intolerance on the left.

Chait was praised for his truth-telling bravery in some quarters. But like Susan Sontag’s belated realization—in 1982—that “communism is fascism with a human face,” Chait was merely giving voice to what any moderately sentient American had realized a long time ago: that various voices on the left use hot-button words and the mob effects of social media to avoid the niceties—and the risks—of actual debate, by making it appear as if opponents have, by using the wrong word, or, in Arquette’s case, failing to recite a politically approved formula in the exact right order (“the real issue for working single women is taxes not wage equity!”), condemned themselves to a pit of hellfire, a spectacle bound to frighten any sensible person without 100,000 angry Twitter followers into remaining silent. Indeed, though Chait was pilloried by many progressives for his piece, in reality his essay was simply a long exploration of a point made a few weeks earlier in the same magazine by Chris Rock, who declared political correctness to be “back stronger than ever” in an interview with Frank Rich. (Interestingly, when Rock said it, no one in the political correctness squad reacted.)

He's a Londoner from a wealthy family. His first name is Mohammed (what are the odds, eh?).Pace Obama's imbecilic narrative, were one to examine the backgrounds of many top jihadis, it would quickly become apparent that wealth, not poverty, breeds holy warriors.

Leftist Jews who have abandoned G-d and His commandments still feel the itching of an aimless guilt that they scratch with a self-hating inferiority complex. They think that the solution to being hated is to throw every game and to let the other guy win. Their damaged moral code tells them that bad people win and good people lose. Winning makes them feel as if they did something wrong.

They are suckers for every cause, but their own. They can only find fulfillment in the causes of others. Other people’s causes are untainted by reflexive guilt no matter how evil they may be. SJP’s [Students for Justice and Peace's] chapters have no shortage of Jewish members who feel that the cause of destroying their own people is cleaner than their own cause. And even many liberal Jews who do not try to escape their sense of guilt through such extremes of national self-hatred lack any deep and passionate conviction in a Jewish cause.

They emphasize the positive. They would rather play defense than go on the offense. Their ideal outcome is for everyone to sit together and work out their differences. And that’s why they lose.

The family of a young Canadian woman who travelled to Syria after being radicalized say losing her was the most "shocking thing in the world" and that they wish CSIS had done more to prevent the 23-year-old’s departure.

The woman, whom CBC News is calling Aisha to protect her identity, made the journey to Syria to join up with ISIS last summer, after taking an online course to study the Qur’an taught by a woman based in Edmonton, says her older sister Rabia (whose name has also been changed).

"We all went to work, came home, all her stuff was gone. She had packed all her winter clothes, took her computer and left,” Rabia says.

"It was the most devastating, most scary, most shocking thing in the world."

Over the past several months, Rabiahas been speaking to CBC News about her family's ordeal. Some details, such as names and the family’s location, are being withheld for security reasons.

What sort of "security reasons"? Can we at least know the name of the person who radicalized her. Also, why is it CSIS's responsibility to keep her from running away?

In his Toronto Sun column (the link has yet to be posted online), Tarek Fatah comments on those who was--and wasn't--invited to Obama's smoke 'n' mirrors summit last week (Fatah calls it "a theatre of the absurd"). Some of those who were invited, says Fatah, are "the very people who have preached Islamism and promoted sharia in their sermons," including:

Imams from American mosques which practice gender-segregation and homophobia, representatives of Gulf Arab States who funded and promoted the ideology and the government of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and women sporting Muslim Brotherhood-mandated hijabs dotted the audience and speakers.

Who wasn't there?:

Conspicuous by their absence at the summit were prominent Muslims who have for the past decade been fighting for the doctrine of the Islamic State (ISIS), which was the real focus of the conference.

One of the American Muslims not invited was the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser...

The sharia-promoters were in and Jasser was out? That tells you all you need to know about this ludicrous event (and about Obama's messed-up thinking, too).

Stephen Hawking was no great shakes as a husband. So says the first Mrs. Hawking, whose tender love story is captured in The Theory of Everything, for which Eddie Redmayne just won an Oscar (the Academy, as per usual, tending to give the award to actors who are persuasive in simulating severe infirmity--think Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and this year's Best Actress winner). Jane Hawking--Felicity Jones plays her in the movie--writes that she and her three kids were sidelined after Hawking published his great, unread best seller and became a superstar. Prior to that time, though, life with the cosmologist wasn't exactly a party:

She met Hawking on a railway platform when she was a teenager and he was yet to be diagnosed with his debilitating disease. They married young – “because we didn’t know how long Stephen was going to live” – and she became used to him being lost in thought. “The goddess Physics was Stephen’s idol. I was not jealous of her but she did give me some cause for concern. Sometimes Stephen would spend a whole weekend in his wheelchair, elbow resting on his knee like Rodin’s Thinker. He wouldn’t take any notice of the children, or of me, and I would become very worried. Was he uncomfortable or ill, or had I upset him in some way? Then, on the Monday morning, he would look up and smile and say, “I’ve solved that equation!”

The horror is unfolding before our eyes as Muslim supremacists strive to make the Middle East Christianrein. (It's already mostly Judenrein, with the glaring exception of Israel.) What was that ghastly expression? Something like, "After the Saturday people we'll come for the Sunday people"?

WASHINGTON - As part of their ongoing effort to open the People’s House to as
many people as possible, the President and First Lady announced today that this
year’s White House Easter Egg Roll will be held on Monday, April 6. The event
will open the White House South Lawn for children ages 13 years and younger and
their families...
The theme for the 2015 White House Easter Egg Roll is “#GimmeFive.”

As part of the fifth anniversary of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative, Mrs. Obama
is challenging Americans across the country to #GimmeFive things they
are doing to eat better, be more active, and lead a healthier life. Individuals
and families can get involved by sharing on social media five things they’re
doing to be healthy and passing on the challenge to others with
#GimmeFive. The #GimmeFive challenge has already begun, and it
will be a fun and central part of this year’s Easter Egg Roll.

In support of Let’s Move!, the
event will feature sports and fitness zones, cooking demonstrations, and Easter
classics such as the egg roll and egg hunt, in addition to live music and
storytelling...

Can't something be fun for the sake of fun any more? Why do "progressives" always have to ruin things by injecting some sort of preachy message/indoctrination/social engineering into them?

demonstrate Israeli incitement to racist violence towards Palestinians, Africans and other non-Jews. Sheen documents how top Israeli political and religious leaders inspired the vigilante attacks which spiked during last summer’s assault on the Gaza Strip. In addition to race and religion, the presentation touches on issues of gender and class. It includes material Sheen presented at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Brussels, as well as new material that has not yet been made public anywhere.

The event is the handiwork of the usual self-adoring/self-righteous rabble:

is an independent journalist and filmmaker who falsely claims that Israel discriminates against Africans. One false quote he publicized on his Twitter feed states that “Just as Nazis compared Jews to vermin to incite racism against them, Netanyahu compares non-Jewish Africans to ebola.”

By purveying his Big Lie about Israel at a time when Jew-hate is once again spreading like wildfire around the globe, it is evident that Dave is the one who might be compared to ebola.
﻿

Max Blumenthal really hates Jews. He hates Jews so much that one of his conspiracy theories about Israel was reposted by the Neo-Nazi gunman who opened fire at a Kansas City Jewish community center.

His book Goliath does its best to mock the Holocaust while depicting Jews as the New Nazis with chapters like “How To Kill Goyim And Influence People”. It’s the sort of deranged hatefest you expect from a guy living in a trailer in the woods, except it comes from a Clinton associate backed by The Nation.

So Germany’s Left Party, the successors of the East German Communist dictatorship, decided to invite Max Blumenthal and his even crazier pal David Sheen to spew hate about Jews under the guise of being “Anti-Zionist”. Sheen, like Blumenthal, also specializes in calling Jews, Nazis. Except that Sheen also rants about Judaism and “Jewish Supremacy”.

If Sheen sounded a lot like a Nazi, that made the invite more appropriate and controversial.

Monday, February 23, 2015

The defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for something they did not do.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all sides.”

But citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.

The Palestinian Authority and the P.L.O. said in a statement that they were “deeply disappointed” in the verdict, calling the lawsuit’s charges “baseless.”

“We will appeal this decision,” Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa, the Palestinian Authority’s deputy minister of information, said in the statement. “We are confident that we will prevail, as we have faith in the U.S. legal system and are certain about our common sense belief and our strong legal standing.”

The deal that the United States and the P5+1 powers are working towards would enable Iran to produce nuclear weapons only a few years after the signing of the accords, if Iran demonstrates “good behavior” during the years the agreement is in effect, Israel’s NRG reported on Monday. The report cites an official involved in the talks between the Western powers and Iran who leaked details of the agreement emerging between the two sides.

The report states that the one point of contention continuously arising in conversations is the United States’ requirement to impose conditions on Tehran to supervise its program for 20 years, in order to examine Iran’s compliance and good behavior. Iranian representatives, however, have only agreed to a decade, and according to the Western official, the parties might meet somewhere in the middle.

The source noted that one of the variations discussed in the talks is the tight and rigorous inspection of the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment for 10 years. If the Iranians comply with the conditions and if they demonstrate “good behavior,” then the restrictions will be removed for the last five years of the agreement – a time-frame that will allow them to develop a nuclear weapon during those years...

Perhaps our president regards that dictatorship as genuinely Islamic. I don’t know. But if you can call the mullahs’ regime Islamic — they stone girls to death for the “crime” of having been gang-raped — you should not be too bashful about calling ISIS “Islamic.”

The difference, of course, is that Obama is sucking up to the mullahs' regime (which forces Iranians to comply with an extreme form of sharia) in a frantic and misguided bid to get it to sign a nuclear deal. At present, however, he isn't in negotiations with ISIL.

While I accept they have fallen prey to Isil’s digital propaganda machine, these teen girls aren’t stupid. Far from it. In fact they are all grade-A students at the Bethnal Green Academy in Tower Hamlets. We are told by their worried friends and family that they are thoughtful and intelligent people.

Bizarrely many of the estimated 550 Western women who have chosen to make this journey to join Isil are simlarly well-educated and well-informed. Aqsa Mahmood, 20, is a case in point. Glasgow-born and privately educated – she is now married to an Isil fighter in Syria and is mother to his children. She calls for her fellow Muslims in the West to copy murders like that of Fusilier Lee Rigby. Nice.

So much for that "violent extremism"-is-a-function-of-poverty narrative.

My explanation for what's wrong with Islam: Islam's built-in supremacism and the jihad imperative, a core component of the faith, that serves that religious ethos. Also the whole "submission" thing, which tends to engender ennui and gives rise to totalitarianism, an expression of which is Islamic law, a.k.a. the sharia. Also the fact that Islam's founder was a warrior--the first and the foremost holy warrior. That's a problem because Muslims are told that this man is "perfect," and since he never made a wrong move, his example must be emulated.TLF's explanation: He would never, Heaven forefend, "want to tell Muslims what their religion is and isn't." Therefore, all he can do is throw up his hands and pin the blame on the usual "progressive" bugaboos--i.e. too many aimless young men with too much time on their hands and need to release their pent up sexual frustrations in some sort of way:

I think it’s a really complicated mix of a product of years of authoritarian government, mixing with the export of Wahhabi puritanical Islam from Saudi Arabia, all over that world, that has really leached out the more open, joyous, synchronistic Islam that you had in Egypt. You look at pictures of graduates from Cairo University in 1950, you’ll see none of the women were wearing veils. Today you look at the picture and probably most of the women will be wearing veils. Thank you, Saudi Arabia. That is the product of the export of a particular brand of Islam from Saudi Arabia with the wealth of that country. And that’s mixed in also with the youth bulge and unemployment.

And so where Islam starts in that story and where authoritarian begins, how much people hate their own government, bleeding into Wahhabism, bleeding into massive amounts of young men who have never held power because they’re not allowed to in their country, never held a job, never held a girl’s hand. And when you have lots of young males who have never held power, a job, or a girl’s hand, that is real dynamite.

There are, it would seem, three questions to be answered: what is in fact the relationship, if any, between Islam and terrorism; what do authorities believe is the relationship; and what do they say they believe. The peculiar insistence on the right that politicians insert the word “Islamic” before “terrorism” would appear to stem from a belief that anything else is an abdication from the “truth,” that there is “something about Islam” that explains the proliferation of terrorist groups claiming to act in its name.

There is something about Islam, Andy. It's spelled j-i-h-a-d. Surely you've heard of it; it's been in all those history books.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

There's a humongous new mosque/community hub--150,000 square feet, no less--going up in the oil patch city of Fort McMurray, Alberta, and the Globe & Mail has a suitably lengthy piece in its "Focus" section about it. The G&M scribbler, Colin Freeze, seems quite taken with the project, since it is going to be really, really "diverse," embracing Muslim Fort McMurrayites who originally hail from all sorts of different places in the Muslim world. And in case you're one of those "Islamophobes" who frets about what kinds of things might be preached from the pulpit of such a mosque, fear not. According to Freeze, the mosque's imam is one of those, like, totally cool, forward-looking, "moderate" Muslims:

The imam

Fort McMurray’s imam, Abdurrahmann Murad, has come full circle: Born in Surrey, B.C., he left Canada at 19 to study at a university in Riyadh. “It’s one of the most prestigious institutions that teaches sharia,” he explains of the Saudi Arabian school. Then, a few years ago, he came back to Canada to spread the word.

The imam is also one of 21 global instructors for the AlKauthar Institute, a coterie of mostly young, English-speaking orthodox Sunni scholars who tap into an online audience far greater than any of them could reach at his local mosque. In some of his video lectures, he wears a leather jacket as he holds forth on such topics as whether a beard is religiously mandated. Young Muslims post questions asking him whether they can use skin cream with alcohol in it.

His goal, he says, is “a sense of unity.”

On his personal website, the imam has posted links to provocative essays, authored by other Saudi-educated scholars, which he has translated into English. One such essay, The Rules on How to Interact with Non-Muslims, starts out with an analysis of Sura 5, Verse 51 of the Koran – “Take not the Jews and Christians for Friends.” It goes on to explore how Muslims are to deal with a kafir (infidel), a munafiq (hypocrite) or an apostate in times of peace and war. Another is titled Every Religious Innovation is a Means of Misguidance.

Asked about such essays, the imam says he should be judged by his own words and actions, and not what he has translated in the past. He says that “you go through phases in life” and adds that he wouldn’t do such translations now. These days, he uses Facebook and Twitter to broadcast more mainstream Islamic messaging. And he points out that in Fort McMurray he took his congregation through a detailed debunking of propaganda of the so-called Islamic State movement after a prayer session.

Quel relief! I bet that's gone over particularly well with the local--now, what was that word the imam translated long ago during a "phase" he was going through? oh, yeah--kafirs. You bet your sweet sharia it has! In fact,

[s]ince arriving in Fort McMurray just over a year ago, the imam has also given every Mountie in town a crash course in Islam – outreach that the RCMP unit commander later told me was very much appreciated.

But back to that "diversity" that Colin touted at the outset of his rah-rah piece:

The imam says he has changed a lot since moving back to Canada. In Fort McMurray, he explains, everyone overlooks small doctrinal differences in the broader interests of the community. “The Shiites will pray with their hands by their sides; we pray with our hands at our chests,” he says, by way of example. But no one is apt to point out Sunni-Shia schisms at prayers. “It’s not the time or the place. We’re all living in Fort McMurray. We don’t touch any buttons.”

Well, thank God for that. 'Cuz, as we know, when buttons are touched in the Muslim world--Sunnis touching Shias', and vice versa--all hell is apt to break loose. It's nice to know that such antics are strictly out of bounds in chilly Fort McM.

Update: One group of Muslims who likely won't be welcome at the massive mosque: the Ahmadiyyas. So much for the much-bruited "diversity"

Keenly aware of the place of mankind in Islam as vicegerent of Allah on Earth;

Recognizing the importance of issuing a Document on Human Rights in Islam that will serve as a guide for Member states in all aspects of life;

Having examined the stages through which the preparation of this draft Document has so far, passed and the relevant report of the Secretary General;

Having examined the Report of the Meeting of the Committee of Legal Experts held in Tehran from 26 to 28 December, 1989;

Agrees to issue the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that will serve as a general guidance for Member States in the Field of human rights.

Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which Allah made as the best community and which gave humanity a universal and well-balanced civilization, in which harmony is established between hereunder and the hereafter, knowledge is combined with faith, and to fulfill the expectations from this community to guide all humanity which is confused because of different and conflicting beliefs and ideologies and to provide solutions for all chronic problems of this materialistic civilization.

In contribution to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah.

"Human rights" that are in accordance with Islamic Sharia'ah, include:

Muslims having more "human rights" than non-Muslims;

men having more "human rights" than women;

and death sentences meted out for such violations of Islamic Sharia'ah as, say, practicing homosexuality or deciding to opt out of Islam (i.e. becoming an "apostate").

If Obama is unaware of this "human rights" document, then he's a pathetic ignoramus. If his is aware of it, and has chosen to ignore it, then he's a duplicitous blowhard. Either way, he has once again shown himself to be unfit to hold the office to which he was re-elected (a re-election which represents "the triumph of hope over experience," as Oscar Wilde said of second marriages).

So please don't insult Neville Chamberlain by comparing him to Obama. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, because conspiracies are generally a comforting illusion: the real problem with Obama is that the citizens of the global superpower twice elected him to office. Yet one way to look at the current "leader of the free world" is this: If he were working for the other side, what exactly would he be doing differently?

For example, he has spent most of this week hosting an international conference on something called "violent extremism". Whatever may be said of Munich, Chamberlain never hosted a three-day summit on "rearmament" in general whose entire purpose was to deny that "rearmament" and "Germany" were in any way connected. Yet that is exactly the message the United States government has just offered to the world - in between such eccentric side spectacles as Marie Harf, star of the hilarious new comedy Geopolitically Blonde, explaining her jobs-for-jihadis program, and the new hombre in charge of the planet's mightiest military machine having his woman felt up on camera by Joe Biden. Now there's a message to send to the misogynists of Burqastan about what happens when you let the missuses out of their body bags.

One recalls William F. Buckley's quip about preferring to entrust the governance of the U.S. to the "first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." It seems to me that now would be a perfect time to make the switch.And Marie Harf? She could also star in the hilarious--and yet tragic--new musical, Blonde Ambition. Her show-stopper: "Nothing To Do With the Jihad" (which, go figure, has the same melody as "Everything's Comin' Up Roses"):Islam's swell! Islam's great!It has nothin' to do with the hate!Starting here, starting now,It's got nothing to do with the jihad!Clear your minds! Just relax!Barack O.'s gonna give you the facts:"Islam's grand. Islam's fine.It's got nothing to do with the jihad."Those Crusades--jeer!So barbaric and cruel.Open wide, dear.Dr. O.'s got your thin, toxic gruel!Curtain down! There's no wrathAs we lead you down our garden path!Islam's swell. Islam rocks.Go to hell with your balks.That crescent moon was once embraced by Dad.Honey, true Islam's got lots of roses and daffodils!True Islam's got lots of kisses and happiness!True Islam's got lots of rainbows and unicorns!True Islam's got not a thing to do with the jihad! Update: And speaking of bubbleheads--ladies and gents, it's our prime minister-in-waiting, Justin T.! (Tip o' the hat to relentless link aggregator MW.)

Well, it is hard to compete with ISIS's "messaging," replete as it is are with scenes of carnage and gruesomeness, that, if fake, would be in line for an Academy Award for Best Makeup. But, hey, maybe one of those "czars," an Obama trademark, can make some headway in countering ISIS's "messages":Or maybe not:

“In Washington, when you don’t want to do something, you describe it as a messaging problem,” said Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “And you resort to promoting messaging czars. The real problem is you have nothing to message. That’s at the heart of Obama’s problem. He doesn’t have a policy or a strategy to message — not with the military, not with the political, not with the economic.”...

As for Obama's linkage of terrorism and dire economic circumstances,

Ms. Pletka said Mr. Obama’s idea as a counterterrorism strategy is “garbage.”

“Counterterrorism is not a jobs program,” she said. “And the fact that he linked unemployment with terrorism is beyond ridiculous. If that were the case, we wouldn’t see terrorists coming from social welfare states like Denmark or Belgium or the U.K.”

Yes, folks, that's the skewed way Channel 4 unpacks reality--that a harmless, perambulating Jew, and not those who hate him for being Jewish, are the problem.That's in keeping with how this TV outlet downplays/makes excuses for the real problem. Here's another example--in the headline for this story of a teenager who was arrested for plotting to behead a British soldier, it mentions that the lad started out as a Jehovah's Witness and became "radicalized," but doesn't stipulate his new religious affiliation. The headline thereby leaves the false impression that the Jehovah's Witnesses had something to do with it.Update: Guess who radicalized the former Jehovah's Witness? None other than rabid jihadi, Anjem Choudary.

Confession time: I am not an aficionado of pain. Any kind of pain. Thus, I have never felt the slightest inclination to introduce torture into the bedroom, as either a giver or receiver thereof. As such, I find the whole 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon somewhat baffling--and more than a little icky. Thankfully, Kay Hymowitz is here to analyze it for me:

More than anything, 50 Shades represents the mainstreaming and feminization of S&M pornography. Once confined to the shadows of the art-movie house, sadomasochism is having its moment in the bright light of the mall. Both critics and fans of 50 Shades miss the essential point about pornography: that it speaks to primitive, pre-rational, taboo desires. Its lure is precisely the refusal to bow to social limits. It doesn’t matter who sets those limits: fathers, priests, or gender studies professors can all have the sort of authority that the unconscious is determined to flout. Nor will gender progress stop the rebellious id. Even a Hillary Clinton presidency won’t rid the nation of libidinous fantasies about dangerous Alpha Males wielding duct tape.

Still, James is clever enough to know that this taboo fantasy is hardly the final word on women’s desires. I’m far from the only one to observe that beneath the outré distractions of the Red Room lies the most conventional of love stories: the emotionally stunted man who finally cannot resist the love of a good woman. In a familiar vein, Anastasia—the Disney-sounding name is no accident—wants “more” (i.e., emotional connection, communication, love, and all that stereotypical female stuff) from this distant man who not only doesn’t commit, but “doesn’t do relationships” altogether. Her triumph over his psychological demons is as far from the multi-partner degradations of the 1954 S&M “classic,” The Story of O, as a children’s game of hide and seek is from Gladiator combat. But it’s clearly a major element in the book’s success.

James modernizes the seemingly outmoded fantasy of her tale through an elaborate performance of consent. Grey presents Anastasia with a contract dense with “fundamental terms” and appendices, stipulating rules of location, time, and meticulously described limits. He even insists that she sign off on various bondage accessories. The contract negotiations give Anastasia a degree of power even as she signs it away.

Okay. So Christian Grey is a sort of update of Rhett Butler--with duct tape. Gotcha. It still does nothing for me, though. In fact, I am far more intrigued by the idea of 50 Shades of Gravy--the name of a food truck me and my sister-in-law are thinking of launching.
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Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.